Thursday, February 15, 2018

Minutes January 16, 2018

The
meeting began by reviewing the minutes of the last meeting
(printouts provided as needed) and then formally approving those
minutes.

Virginia presented the treasurers report. We lost
a total of $382 dollars in the last year, according to comparing our
most recent bank-cash on hand record with the same from a year earlier.
The treasurers report
was formally approved.

The mailing list was discussed. Natalie
has agreed to make sure that all board members are on the "big list"
that is to be used to mail out dance newsletters to our dance email
recipients (when and as such newsletters are available). We also agreed
that we would resume collecting emails, using a combined form that also
allows for people to volunteer if they are interested.

There were no new reimbursement items to deal with.

There
were no reports of issues at the last two dances, which went pretty
well except that we could have used a few more dancers to meet costs.

Marguerite
gave the booking report. In short, the current season is completely
booked, except for one band that has not yet officially confirmed. John
then bought up an item that was already on the agenda for later
discussion, which was about Connie's email about possibly giving local
bands and callers "first dibs" (right of first refusal?) on ALL dance
dates. We formally agreed that once the booker supplies the "all
available dance dates" list to the local bands and callers (presumably
in writing, via an email perhaps?), those entities would have three
weeks to get back to the booker with the subset of dates they would be
available. Also, the band or caller would inform the booker of the
rankings of date preferences. For example, Connie might indicate that
her band would like to play the May dance as a first choice, the March
dance as second choice etc. This is assuming that bands or callers have
some preference, which they may not. The booker would then use that
information to assign the dates preferred by local caller and bands
using that information. After that three weeks, the booker would be
free to open all remaining available dates to all comers, local or
distant. We did not discuss or vote on the related issue of increasing
the percentage of gigs to reserve for local bands and callers. In other
words, locals would have a three week sign up to gig advantage over out
of town folks.

Addendum: As secretary, I missed or forgot to write down an important additon to the above. We formally decided to allow each local band three (as opposed to the former two) gigs per season, thus reserving roughly 50% of the contra dance band gigs of our group to local bands. Also, we asked that local callers (if willing) each do three dances per season. The idea of all this being to lower our operating costs and try to break even. John Wetzel, secretary.

We may have a possible new board member recruit. More news on this as it develops....

No one has any new ideas this meeting on recruitment of new dancers and improving dance attendance.

We are still due some money on a pair of speakers.

Victor
asked the group to re-approve the spending of between $100 and $150 for
the purchase of 100 buttons, because the previous approval was done
some time ago. This was formally approved.

John
mentioned that because of an event the night before our next dance, we
will not have use of the area normally used by the band, and we will
have to use a small zone of the dance floor for that function.

We
also discussed that we will need to arrive ready to be flexible about
the pot luck part of the evening, because of the cordoned off part of
the dance hall. It was mentioned that this time we are not providing
any food out of the COTMD budget, and are hoping that the dance
community steps up to provide all the food we will need.

We
briefly discussed the redesign of our "bland" website. Victor pointed
out that although he did change the look and feel of the site, he was
just doing a quick "unblanding" of the site, a temporary fix, and did
not have any intention of hindering a more thoughtful and thorough
redesign by the committee that was assigned that task. No one has any
problem with the site being changed again by the redesign committee.

We then discussed Victor's suggestion
of moving to a bi-monthly dance utilizing canned music (see previous minutes for details).

We
discussed the issue of paying or not paying the bands who's recorded
music we might utilize. We decided that we can pay a specific band
(such as Contra Force) if we use their music all evening. However, if
someone wishes to utilize a program of music from many sources and
bands, we have the right to do so without paying, due to being covered
by the ASCAP license Emerald Ballroom carries, and the fact that the
music was purchased and is owned by the user for reasonable use
purposes.

We also formally agreed to let Victor begin the
implementation of his planned "first Saturdays" series, in the form of a
three or four month trial run, to begin in February, pending
negotiations with Emerald Ballroom about venue issues.

The
need to "rebrand" the new series, and make sure people understand that
it is different from our current/standard/original live music format,
was stressed.

Finally we discussed setting
up and utilizing both Paypal and Patreon as "free" vehicles for
accepting donations. Victor explained why doing so would work and would
not cause us any expense, while allowing us to accept credit card and
other types of donations very easily.